8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
In his sermon, Happy are the Holy, MacArthur says....
How can a person enter the kingdom? What kind of righteousness must we have to be accepted by the Messiah, to become part of the kingdom? How do we get in?
And I believe more than any other single Beatitude this Beatitude, verse 8, gives the answer. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they," altoi, they and they alone is the emphatic meaning, "shall see God." If I can paraphrase, you want to know who gets in the kingdom? The pure in heart and they and they alone will see God in His kingdom. That's the answer. It's the pure in heart. Now watch this, it is not those who observe the external washings. It is not those who go through the outside ceremonies. It is not those who have what I've chosen to call the religion of human achievement. It's not those who crank out a ritualistic external works righteousness system. It is the ones who've had their hearts purified who see God and they alone are the ones who see God. What an incredible statement this becomes then. This is the answer to the question that's being asked by the population that Jesus confronts.
It's a powerful statement. The pure in heart and they alone shall see God....The more pure your heart, the more of God you see. What a great reality it is....Purity of heart cleanses the eyes of the soul so that God is visible.
Every one of these Beatitudes is critical. You can't remove any of them. I mean, every one of them is critical and they flow in a beautiful, magnificent sequence in perfect order according to the mind of God. It isn't the matter that the first or the last or the middle is more important. They are equally important. They are all part of the same thing. They are all part of one great reality. You can't isolate the one from the whole. Beloved, I would say this to you, a kingdom person is one who fulfills all of these things, you see. All of these things. You can't pick and choose. You can't say well, let's see there are so many of those. Let's see, I'll take...no, you can't do that. It's a flow of life. Once you've come to the point where it begins that are poor in spirit, the rest flows out in a wonderful outworking of the spirit of God.
Now you begin with the reality of being poor in spirit. And when you see yourself as a cowering beggar in a corner reaching out a hand that can only be given a gift, you have no power to earn anything. And as a cowering beggar ashamed to show your face, you reach out in tremendous sense of inadequacy. You reach out to God. That's where it begins and then in your reaching out as a beggar, your next response is to mourn over the sin that has put you in that position. And out of your total sense of sinfulness, you fall meek before an absolutely holy God. You couldn't be anything else but humble. And in your humility, all you can do is cry out and hunger and thirst for a righteousness which you can't attain and yet you've got to have. And you cry that God would give it. And then what happens, He gives you mercy and that's the next Beatitude and you become one of those who are merciful. And once you have been granted mercy and once God by His mercy has cleansed your heart because you hungered for His righteousness, then and then alone do you become pure in heart and only when you are pure in heart could you ever be a peacemaker.
I love how all the beatitudes flow from each other like that, I`ve never looked at it that way before.
Purity in heart is, quite simply, holiness and righteousness. This is not something we earn, not something we could ever achieve. Rather it is the gift of God. God takes our sin and gives us purity. What an incredible exchange!
And peacemakers?
Peace is not peace at any cost. It`s not the absence of conflict. That`s just a truce. Peace, in fact, often involves conflict, because true peace is confronting the issue head on and seeing it through to a point of reconciliation and love. It`s dealing with truth, confronting sin in order to achieve right relationship.
Peace does not evade issues, it confronts them.
Peace does not sweep things under the rug to avoid conflict, it confronts sin and speaks the truth in love.
Peace does not ignore purity.
Peace doesn`t avoid the problem, it conquers the problem.
Peace does not abandon principle, doctrine or conviction.
You cannot separate peace from purity and holiness. In fact, holiness and purity resolve the issue and bring peace.
Obviously we should avoid needless strife. But when we avoid strife to the point of sacrificing truth or condoning sin than we have compromised our faith and it isn`t peace at all. As MacArthur says in his sermon, Happy are the Peacemakers, It's just a truce and everybody is reloading....true peace can only come when truth reigns
Sometime peace involves a whole lot of conflict. The truth often hurts because it is usually a confrontation of our sin, pride and selfishness. And that`s gonna cause trouble. But if we avoid that, we don`t have peace, we have truce without right relationship. This doesn`t mean we have to agree with each other on everything. But we cannot allow sin to fester and sweep it under the rug.
The menace of peace is, quite simply, sin.
peace is not to be found in our circumstances. The problem is in our innate sinfulness. It is our uncontrolled lusts that rob us of peace.
The only way that we are able to have peace with God is because Jesus` righteousness was imputed to us at our salvation. That`s the only way. And once we`ve attained that peace we need to keep it, by dealing with sin as it comes up in our lives.
We also need to help others make peace with God. And that is going to cause conflict. Because the only way to make peace with God is to acknowledge and deal with sin and people don`t like to do that! But truly, evangelism is peacemaking.
And then we also need to make peace with each other. Again, this often involves conflict as our issues need to be dealt with in order to reach true peace. And, I`d venture to say, because peace and holiness are impossible to separate, believers can never be at true peace with unbelievers. Another huge reason for the command to not being yoked with an unbeliever.
And the benefit to being a peacemaker? It`s huge! It`s being known as the sons and daughters of God Himself.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 5:10-12
1 comment:
Great post. I'm loving looking deeper into the Beatitudes.
Post a Comment